


Good Fathers

by Heavenward (PreludeInZ)



Series: TAG DeviantAU [6]
Category: Thunderbirds
Genre: Addiction, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Recovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-12
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-01 22:31:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,479
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6539092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PreludeInZ/pseuds/Heavenward
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>That first week after Spring Break, trying to find some redemption for Jeff. Good fathers don't have drug addicts for sons.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. somnambulance

It’s long after midnight, and John’s only been under his father’s roof for a little over a week, when Jeff first encounters his second son outside of work.

It’s just a brief glimpse of John, crossing the hallway from the guest room to the bathroom. Jeff catches sight of him quite accidentally, from where he sits in the living room, nursing a quiet glass of bourbon before he’ll catch a few hours of sleep.

There’s a solid click of the light switch in the bathroom, and the door stays open, spilling light into the dark hallway. Jeff grunts a minor note of disapproval, but doesn’t move from where he sits. John more or less has the run up the place. It’s not as though decorum really matters.

The light continues to flood the hallway, but Jeff doesn’t hear what he expects. Curious, straining his hearing slightly, Jeff listens to soft sounds from beyond the open bathroom door, cupboard doors opening and closing. Shuffling noises, quiet muttering. It’s not until he hears the rattle of pills against plastic that interest (concern) gets the better of him, and he gets up to investigate.

It’s probably just that John has a headache, Jeff tells himself, as he steals into the hallway to creep up to the open bathroom door. It’s probably just that he needs a couple aspirin and he can’t find them. It’s not as though any of the boys are in town very often, certainly it’s been a while since anyone stayed at the penthouse. There’s no way John’s lapsed back into his habit so quickly, but Jeff still stalks quietly to the bathroom door and peers in, expecting the worst. 

John doesn’t notice his father in the doorway behind him. The bathroom mirror faces the door and Jeff can see his son’s face, and he’s apparently absorbed by his current task—twisting the childproof cap off a bottle of antacids. There’s a snap of plastic as this is accomplished, and Jeff watches as his son upends the bottle over the sink. A rain of small pink ovals rattles against the porcelain, sixty or so tablets scattering into the bowl or bouncing up onto the counter. John shakes the empty bottle once, twice and then, satisfied, moves on to another bottle, aspirin. Xanax follows, then an antihistamine. Then Tylenol, Advil, half a leftover codeine prescription from the time Jeff had thrown out his back. Jeff watches, transfixed by the blank serenity of John’s features, somnambulant. 

So, sleepwalking. All of Jeff’s boys had been subject to different flavours of sleep disorder, generally mild, nothing too concerning. Virgil had been the one with sleep terrors, John with insomnia. Alan’s the one who’d been plagued by sleepwalking, though it had stopped once he’d hit adolescence. Jeff has to pause a few moments to remember the do’s and don’ts of sleepwalkers. Not new in the family, but definitely new in John.

Or, at least, as far as he knows. He’d had John’s apartment cleaned out and his possessions brought out west—and as Gordon had mentioned, the place was bare, nearly empty as the day it was rented. Maybe it had been a deliberate precaution on John’s part, maybe sleepwalking is just something else his father wouldn’t have heard about. Neither here nor there. 

“John?” Jeff says softly, and goes unheard. It was always nigh on impossible to wake Alan, back when he was little, but he would drowsily ramble on when prompted. More often than not it was a case of just herding the boy back to bed. He has to wonder if the rules are different for drug addicts. 

Blithely unaware of the fact that he’s being watched, John unscrews the lid off a forgotten bottle of fish oil capsules, and is briefly stymied by the fact that they’ve aged past their prime, and gotten stuck together in a lump inside the bottle.

The entire mass of congealed pills dislodges itself and the impact into the sink is loud and sudden enough that John starts awake. Vagueness sharpens into immediate terror, disorientation, and he yells, reels away from the counter and the mirror at the sight of his own reflection, like he’s seen a ghost. Jeff isn’t quite quick enough to clear the door way, and his son runs straight into him.

John’s of a height with his father, but not nearly as well muscled. He’s all long limbs and trembling as Jeff catches hold of his shoulders. He slides his hands down to gently pin John’s arms at his sides before he can lash out, wild-eyed and frantic and not actually awake yet. It’s a long practiced motion, though it was last practiced on a tiny scrap of a blonde ten-year-old. Alan, only eight at the time, had once been spooked badly enough upon being woken that he’d given his father a hell of a black eye. Lesson learned. 

“Easy! John. Johnny, stop. _John_. John, _stop_. Cut it out, c’mon. It’s just Dad. Come on, you’re all right. You’ve been sleepwalking. You’re okay.”

Jeff can’t remember the last time he’d actually touched his son, because he finds himself alarmed at just how thin the boy’s gotten—how clear it becomes that he _is_ just a boy. In the daylight, even in spite of whatever he’s gone through, John still cuts a tall, sharp figure through the offices of Tracy Industry’s West Coast HQ. After dark, at home, with no one to impress—the NASA t-shirt he’s worn to bed hangs off his narrow shoulders, though Jeff remembers the long ago trip when it had been purchased, a souvenir from Cape Canaveral, and how a men’s large had been a much better fit on his son at eighteen than his son at twenty-four.

It takes a few repetitions of the facts before John’s green eyes stop darting about and he seems to realize where he is, stares at his father in mortified recognition. John’s still shaky and startled and Jeff doesn’t comment further as his second son breaks away, manages the few steps to the toilet and sinks atop the seat, pulling a hand down his face and then rubbing ferociously at his eyes.

His father has a certain sense of decorum, and the sense to go to the kitchen and get his son a glass of water, pretend he doesn’t notice the emotional aftermath.

Except—

Ignorance of the emotional aftermath might be what has John under his roof in the first place.

Jeff Tracy is a man of deeply held ideals. He believes in autonomy and self-efficacy, believes in raising his boys to be their own men. Believes they’re all brilliant, all capable of greatness, whether he thrusts it upon them or just thrusts them out into the world to stumble into it on their own.

He hadn’t been wrong about John. He just hadn’t expected his son to push beyond his limits instead of pushing back, in service of something he’d never wanted.

The glass he’s filling from the tap in the kitchen overflows, cold water running over his fingers. He drains it himself and then sets it aside, heads back to the bathroom.

The door’s been closed, but the light still shines underneath it, and when Jeff tries the handle, it’s not locked.

John’s standing in front of the mirror again, carefully sorting pills back into bottles. He doesn’t look up when the door opens behind him, though this time he’s fixed and focused on his task. His eyes dart up briefly, catch the gaze of his father’s reflection, and then drop back down as though he’s hoping it wasn’t noticed.

Jeff clears his throat, awkward the way he almost never is. He’s still in his shirt sleeves, his tie loose at his throat, and he’s aware that he wears his age far more accurately than John wears his. “John? You don’t need to do that, don’t worry about it. You should go back to bed.”

“It’s fine,” John answers, deceptively neutral, though Jeff can see his hands are still trembling slightly. “I’m fine, Dad, sorry. Sorry, I’ll just—fix this. I’ll fix this and then I should—should probably, um, probably I should get up anyway. Sorry. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“You didn’t wake me. I got in from a conference call with Tokyo, I hadn’t gone to bed yet. Johnny, it’s three in the morning. You need to get some sleep. Go in late tomorrow, it’s fine.”

A stubborn shake of his son’s head and Jeff feels a funny sort of quirk of his jaw, a twitch of irritation at what seems like defiance. It’s not, and this is a knee jerk reaction that he muscles past, even as John stammers his way through further objections, “I’m really okay. It’s okay. It’s just, I need to just—“

“John, it’s not necessary. I mean it now, stop that.” Unbidden, not quite meaning to, he reaches into the bathroom from where he hangs in the doorway, and catches John’s elbow. He’s not just thin, he’s cold to the touch and Jeff’s suddenly more concerned than he was a moment ago. “John. Come on.”

“I’ll go for a run,” John answers, disconnectedly, even as he leaves the counter and permits himself to be pulled into the hallway. “Disordered sleep is a common side-effect during…a-after. With, uh, with detox. I read about it. My doctor said, it’s not uncommon. Just stay busy. It’s fine. I’m fine.”

“You’re not going to go for a run,” Jeff answers firmly, and ushers his son to back to his bedroom. “Back in bed, John.”

“I don’t think I can sleep.”

Jeff very seriously doubts that, if anything like what he remembers about Alan is also true about John, in this state. The way the boy stumbles, the way he doesn’t protest being shown back to bed, sitting down on the mattress and yawning—Jeff hopes he’ll drop right back off to sleep. “Well, you can rest, anyway. Come on, son.”

John’s still shaking his head, even as he lies back, and permits his father to make some cursory adjustments to the pillows, straighten the blankets. “Gotta—I start at seven, wanna be up at five anyway. Two hours, I could—could at least fix the bathroom. Fix it, I mean, fix the sink. It’s a mess. I didn’t mean to—“

“I know you didn’t. It’s fine. You were sleepwalking, it’s all right.” Jeff bends over to pull the blankets up to his son’s shoulders, remembering the way he’d been shivering. John’s _certainly_ not going for a run, that’s absurd. He’s already nestled back down beneath a heavy down comforter, soft linen sheets. It’s the guest room, all cool blues and greens, pale blonde wood and stainless steel. John’s ginger hair is the only shock of real colour in the room, though the warmth of this is cooled as Jeff turns off the bedside lamp.

For a few moments there’s just soft breathing in the silence, and then, muttered and drowsy, “Dad, I’m really sorry. Dad? M’sorry.”

This last is so vague and sad sounding that Jeff wonders if John’s actually woken up at all, or if the muddled up way he blusters and protests has all just been more sparks and short circuits across an exhausted, worn out brain. Jeff sits down at the end of the bed, carefully shifts to accommodate the length of John’s legs. “It’s okay, John. Shh, now.”

“But I didn’t _mean it_.”

“I know, John.” Jeff pauses, and tries to remember what he’d used to do when it had been Virgil, with his big brown eyes still seeing whatever horrors had scared him awake, or Alan, with bruised shins from tripping over whatever obstacles he’d encountered on one of his late night adventures. “Did I ever tell you,” Jeff starts, and keeps his voice soft and thoughtful, “about the time your Uncle Lee and I had our lunar rover break down on the far side of the moon?”

He has, and he knows he has. Knows this was always one of John’s favourites, too. It’s years since he told any of his boys stories, but the lead-in is traditional, and he gets a quiet, “Mmm?” in answer, and continues, smiling to himself.

“Well, it was back in ‘34. Me and your uncle were supposed to map the site for the staging area for the next Mars mission, some preliminary surveying. We were all packed up in the rover and ready to go, and—now, your Uncle Lee tells this bit differently, but you just remember he’s got a memory like a sieve about this kind of thing— _I_ said, ‘Lee, make sure we have a couple spare fuel cells, don’t wanna get stranded out there’ and _he_ said, ‘Sure, Jeff, I’ll double-check.’ _Well._ Now, let me tell you a few things about driving a rover on the moon—“

He’s told the whole story, softly and without the sort of sound effects that usually accompany the more dramatic elements, by the time he’s quite certain that John’s dropped back off. There’s a glass of bourbon back in the living room, though by this time the ice has probably melted and watered it into undrinkability, by Jeff’s high, exacting standards. He needs to be back in the office in another few hours anyway.

He gets up, limbs a little creakier than they should be, and stretches. The alarm clock beside the bed casts a blue glow, a quarter after four. And his son thinks he needs to be up at _five_. Jeff shakes his head to himself, reaches down and turns the alarm off, decides that John deserves to take a day and take it easy.

Half-closing the bedroom door behind him, Jeff takes a few minutes to detour to the bathroom and sort a sinkful of pills back into their respective bottles. If John’s anything like Alan always was, he won’t remember anything about getting up and wandering the halls, and there’s no need to give him anything else to worry about.

On his way to his own master suite, he can’t seem to help checking on John again, though he’s fast asleep with his arms locked around one of his pillows and his face buried against it. Jeff leans over to peer at his son one last time. Still young. Younger than he acts, and young enough that when Jeff gently ruffles his hair, he feels like a proper father again, in the sort of way that makes him realize that maybe he hasn’t been, where John’s concerned.


	2. insomnia

If sleep doesn’t come in the first fifteen minutes, Jeff’s long since learned that it’s probably not going to. He’s not the sort of man who dozes, not the sort of man who can bear to be unproductive. That there’s anything to be gained from lying awake in bed is the very antithesis of Jeff’s values and beliefs, and even with a lot on his mind, just _thinking_ isn’t the sort of thing he does.

Especially when what he’s thinking about is one of his boys, beneath his roof for the first time in years.

Out of bed, pulling on a robe over boxers and a t-shirt, Jeff rubs his eyes and doesn’t bother with his slippers, barefooted down the hallway from the master bedroom. The impulse strikes to check on John again, but he manages to suppress the urge, and settles for just peeking in the doorway. It’s absurd, really. It hasn’t even been an hour. John’s fine.

Passing the bathroom door, a pill sticks to the bottom of Jeff’s bare foot, missed in the clean-up of the mess John had made. Jeff winces and picks it up, tosses it into the trashcan by the sink, and remembering the reflection of his son, pale and frightened in the mirror, reevaluates his assessment. “Fine” might be a bit generous.

But it’s only been a week. These sorts of things occur on a timeline, and as he continues on to his study, Jeff tells himself that John’s holding up admirably. Probably better than most kids do, in his situation. There’s no sullenness, no tantrums. Nothing like what Gordon had put the family through. No _drama_. He’d made a mistake, admitted to it, and started to take the appropriate steps to correct the problem. To say he’s fine might be generous, but Jeff still has every confidence in his son. Rocky road or not, there’s no question that John’s going to get through.

His office at home is far smaller than the immense expanse of concrete, steel, and glass at the top of Tracy Industries LA office. It’s still sleek and modern and expensively appointed, but it manages to be cozy, too. A clutter of family photos, mementos. A shrine to the sort of family man he still believes himself to be. He’s the sort of father who has a shelf full of grade-school arts and crafts, a digital photo frame rotating through the family albums. He might not remember the exact details of every photo, but he’s _in_ most of them, with Gordon riding piggyback or Scott at his side. Alan hanging off his arm, or Virgil clinging to his hand, or with an arm around John’s shoulders.

Narrow, bony shoulders that don’t even fill out a t-shirt any longer. He doesn’t know how he hadn’t seen that sooner. 

Jeff’s not a man to shrink from hard truths, but in hindsight, it was perhaps a mistake to teach his boys how to dress. Virgil knows how to minimize the broad span of his chest, how to emphasize the cuffs of his jacket so his biceps don’t look cartoonish. Gordon knows how to look taller, especially the crucial secret that it’s _mostly_ about attitude and less about pinstripes, lifted heels, and standing next to Grandma instead of next to Scott. John, apparently, knows how to make fifteen pounds underweight look neat, trim and slender. Knows how to look like he hadn’t been killing himself.

The man in the photos on Jeff’s desk is starting to look like a bit of a dumbass. Jeff scoffs a little, softly and under his breath, at the man in the pictures with his big, idiot grin and certainty that everything’s fine. That fatherly instinct will carry him easily through whatever storms his boys might have to weather.

Jeff would’ve preferred a son who swathed himself in too-big hoodies or tried to make up bulk in layers. He would’ve preferred a son who made amateur mistakes, whose attempts to keep himself a secret only made such a secret all the more obvious. But, no. His second son knows about tailored shirts and breaking up the long, lean line of his body with pale blue against gray, white against soft khaki. John knows what he looks like from the outside. And John’s far too clever, far too self-aware, to make the sort of obvious mistakes that make it a goddamn _miracle_ that Gordon had caught him with an amphetamine addiction.

It’s impulse again, rather than instinct, that has him reach for the phone on his desk. He thumbs his way to his contacts screen, and finds Gordon’s number, dials it without a second thought.

It rings once before Jeff remembers the time, and twice before he remembers that Gordon’s an early riser anyway. In all probability, Gordon’s out for a run on the beach or swimming laps. His phone might be in his locker, or back in his room. Jeff doesn’t really expect to get ahold of his son over his voice-mail, but the third ring is cut off by a short, out-of-breath, “Yeah? H’llo. Uh, Dad. Hi.”

So running, probably. Jeff’s not the sort of person who leads a conversation with the word “hello”. He doesn’t know it about his sons, but it drives them all _crazy_. “Gordon. It’s about your brother.”

“Huh? What’s— _shit_. What happened? Dad? What’s the matter? He okay?”

It’s not very often that Jeff Tracy puts his foot in his mouth, but in his defense, it’s very early. The sharp intake of breath and the panic in Gordon’s tone illicit a certain twisted sense of pride, the fact that the second youngest finally gives a damn about the second oldest. “Oh, no. No, no. He’s fine. I only called to talk about how he’s been.”

There’s a long, weighted pause on the other end of the line, and Jeff can hear his fourth son catching his breath. He mutters something and then heaves a sigh directly into the receiver. His tone is pained, reproachful, when he says, “Dad, _maybe_ don’t call me at the ass-crack of dawn and lead the conversation with ‘it’s your brother.’ _Jesus_.”

“Sorry, Gordon.”

Further grumbling, “My coach is gonna ask about the heartrate spike offa my monitor, and I’m gonna have to say it’s ‘cuz my dad called to scare the shit outta me.”

“That’s enough of the attitude,” Jeff cautions, but without any real sternness. Gordon’s probably a mess of endorphins and adrenaline and, if only for a moment, he’d been badly scared. It’s heartwarming, almost, just _how_ badly scared. A month ago, upon receipt of news about John, Gordon probably would’ve just dropped the call. “If now’s a bad time—“

There’s a grunt and a shuffle, the sort of sound of a windbreaker brushing up against the phone speaker. Jeff pictures his son dropping down to sit himself on dew-wet sand, further up the Californian coast. “No, s’fine. Could use a breather.” A pause. “So how’s he been, then.”

It’s very rare for Jeff to put his foot in his mouth, but he goes and does it a second time in a single conversation anyway. “Well,” he hedges, and tries to fumble together a summary of just how John’s doing. Fine, at work. Fine, in the brief glimpses Jeff’s had of him around the office. At home, in the dark, still battling some fairly obvious demons, of the sort that make their assaults from the very depths of the unconscious. Jeff fails to grab hold of something salient to say, and gives up, “Truth be told, I’m not sure. I suppose I might ask you how exactly I’d be able to _tell_ how he’s doing.”

Jeff likes to imagine that the short silence from the son who usually speaks without thinking is said son, thinking—but the tone of it’s wrong, especially when Gordon answers, barely restraining sarcasm, “Well. I’m not exactly the expert in all things spacebrain, but I’m gonna suggest maybe asking _him_ would be a good start.”

“He’s sleeping.”

The roll of Gordon’s eyes may as well be audible. “Not right _now_. I meant, just, like, generally.” And then, perhaps in a charitable attempt towards some patchwork on their own shakily rebuilt bridge— “How’s he been sleeping?”

It’s as good a place to start as any. “You remember Alan used to sleepwalk?”

“We had bunk beds. I had the bottom. He stepped on my face on _multiple_ occasions. Yeah, I remember Alan sleepwalking.”

“John never did, before tonight—or, well. I never knew, maybe it started up when he was out east. Did he have trouble with it that you knew of, or…?”

“…what, you mean…like, before the whole Adderall thing? Nah, not that I know of.” Gordon hesitates. “I don’t know if that’s a withdrawal thing. Nightmares, though. He had a couple over break. Probably he’s not been sleeping that great, if he’s sleepwalking.”

“He hadn’t mentioned anything.”

There’s another pause from Gordon and then, maybe a little hesitant, “Dad, he’s not _gonna_ mention anything. I promise, he feels like shit, 24/7, and he’s got a long way to go before that’ll stop, but he’s _also_ not gonna let on. Especially not to you.”

“I’ll have a word with his doctor about—“ Jeff’s about to say “about sleeping pills”, but Gordon cuts in again.

“Just let him know that _you_ know he’s tired. And you gotta let him know it’s _okay_ that he’s tired, because it’s only been a week, and he’s _still_ goddamn exhausted. That’s just a medical fact. John’s…he’s his own worst enemy, I swear. Last thing in the world he wants is for people to think he needs help.”

This isn’t a rebuke, but it suddenly feels like one, makes it sound somewhat naive when Jeff says, “He’s seemed fine.”

Gordon’s laugh is humourless. “Yeah, well, he _would_. The bastard. I guess in answer to the original question, _that’s_ how you tell how he’s doing. If John seems fine, it’s because he’s putting everything he’s got into seeming fine. And Dad, he hasn’t got much.” There’s another rustling shuffle, and a faint groan as Gordon gets back to his feet. It hasn’t been a long conversation, but the boy’s never liked to stay still for long. “Just, let him know he’s off the hook. Give him permission to feel like shit. And maybe lock the doors at night, don’t let him walk off the balcony.”

Sound advice. The trick is not to let him know you’re asking, but Gordon gives some of the soundest, most down-to-earth advice out of any of his boys. Jeff’s already glad he’d thought to call Gordon. In a life full of people who are desperate to tell him what he wants to hear—John included, apparently—Gordon’s still got the knack for saying what he thinks. “I’ll talk to him.”

“Good idea.”

_Gordon Cooper Tracy, you are a mouthy little shit, and if you didn’t remind me so much of your mother—_ Jeff clears his throat. “Give him a call, sometime today.”

“Sure, Dad.”

Out of the blue, there’s a question that strikes Jeff. “Did he ever thank you?”

“Hah. No.” But there’s no resentment there, nothing but warmth in Gordon’s tone. “Didn’t know how, the dumbass. That’s okay. Said he was sorry, though, for how things got with him and me. That’s better, I think. I can live with that.”

“…Did _I_ ever thank you?”

This shuts Gordon up. Jeff almost imagines the click of his son’s jaw, snapping closed. This _really_ shuts Gordon up, and rendering Gordon speechless is a once in a blue moon sort of occurrence. He knows the answer, and now’s as good a time as any. “I don’t think I did. So thank you, Gordon, for having an eye on your brother. Picking up my slack, as it were. I’ve thought about what it would’ve been like, not finding out about this before it was too late. Thank you for sparing me that.”

There’s another beat of silence and then Gordon goes scrambling for the high-ground of formality. “Yes, sir. Uh, I mean, you’re welcome. Dad. Sir.” And then, testing his purchase on the bridge their still rebuilding, him and his dad— “I’ve thought about that, too. I’m glad that…well. I’m just thankful too, I guess.” Gordon clears his throat like he’s trying to start an outboard motor. “I, uh, I gotta get back to my run.”

Jeff wonders idly how Gordon’s going to explain what’s got to be the second such pickup of his heart rate and chuckles quietly to himself. “Good man. Remember to call your brother.”

And Gordon laughs at him, solemnity broken. “I’ve called him every damn day this week, Dad. G’bye.”

Jeff’s not the sort of man who opens a conversation with hello, and he’s not the sort of man who usually cedes the last word. But probably, just on the strength of what Jeff’s got to be thankful for, Gordon deserves it.


	3. apathy

“Do you want to catch a ball game this weekend?”

It’s a perfectly harmless overture. No ulterior motives, no trap, no pressure. Nothing to merit the startled way John’s eyes dart up from the plate of sushi he’s hunched over, chopsticks toying with a piece of pickled ginger. As though small talk over dinner is a startling occurrence. His gaze drops back down just as quickly and he shrugs. “Was always more Scott’s thing than mine,” he hedges, and then doesn’t say anything further, instead taking an intense interest in the tuna roll he’s been playing with—goes as far as to take a bite and a long drink of water, rather than commit to a yes or no answer.

“It’s fine if you’re too tired.” The new mantra, courtesy of Gordon. Not a guilt-trip, not a trick, just Jeff following the advice he’d been given. And yet—

“I’m not tired.”

“John.”

“I slept all day, I can’t be tired.”

Still with that fixed-point stare, the long, nervous fingers of one hand toying and teasing at lacquered chopsticks. There’s an unspoken insistence that he clean his plate, because the words _fifteen pounds underweight_ may not still ring in John’s ears, but every time his father catches sight of his son’s bony wrists, of the hollowed out edges of his collarbone—he can still hear the way his doctor had passed on the diagnosis, her tone icy and critical—not of John, but of the sort of father who would’ve failed to notice.

Jeff’s never permitted people in his life who tolerate his bullshit, and his personal physician is no exception. She’s hard, hawk-eyed, and generally unpleasant, as well as utterly _ruthless_ about the health of her patients. This is the service she’s paid to render, holding the extremely wealthy accountable for the damages done by excess. Dr. Leonne is responsible for Jeff’s cholesterol, blood pressure, general health and fitness.

And _now_ , additionally, his drug addict son.

Who _is_ tired, whatever he says. Just a medical fact.

Jeff softens his tone and changes tactics. “Well, Lee Taylor’s in town this weekend, and I can only take so much yammering about the good ol’ days without a buffer. It’s fine if you don’t care for baseball, Lee’s more than likely to talk through the whole game anyway. So if you’re up for it, you’d be doing me a favour.”

“Uncle Lee?” This is a decades old trap, the bait on the end of the hook. Jeff hadn’t expected it to actually _work_ , but for the first time since he’d landed in LA, John may actually be visibly interested in something. Still, he’s cautious as he questions, “What’s he doing here?”

Carefully, Jeff pays out a bit more line, lets the information drift into the conversation, apparently unattached to any kind of consequence. “Book tour for that autobiography of his,” he answers casually, neatly pinioning a slice of tempura squash. He dunks it carefully in salty-sweet soy sauce and continues. “He’ll be doing a few interviews, one or two live readings. Gonna try and catch him in between appearances, deflate that swollen head of his.”

“I didn’t know he wrote another book.”

Jeff chuckles, keeps his hands off the reel. The thread through the conversation twitches and tugs, but John’s not quite on the line yet. “Bit glitzier than the last one. Less of the technical nitty-gritty, more of the rip-roaring adventure. His agent’s probably going to angle towards optioning the movie rights, but I doubt Lee’d go for that.”

That snags on something and John looks up, frowns. “I hope not. That’d…it’d be weird. It’s all the stories he used to tell, back when we were just kids. They couldn’t possibly get it right.”

“Well, come along and tell him so. And while you’re at it, make sure he knows it’s only _my_ generous sufferance that’s let him get away with half the whoppers he’s putting down in print.”

The little twitch of a grin that threatens to surface is Jeff, setting his hook, catching the corner of a smile he hasn’t seen in the entire week his son’s been here. Good ol’ Uncle Lee, panacea for scraped knees and missed piano recitals, a pinch hitter for all seasons. Something about the mere mention of the old ex-astronaut brings out John’s elusive sense of humor, arch and dry as dust, “Do you want me to go through his latest with a red pen and post-it notes and flag all the inconsistencies?”

Jeff scoffs, “I doubt there’s enough red ink in the world. Besides, you’ve got plenty on your plate already. You fight your battles, I’ll fight mine. I’ll tell Lee we’ll meet him on Saturday.”

* * *

Tracy Industries has a standing reservation of a box suite, right above the dugout. Lee Taylor magnanimously swaps it for seats belonging to a single father out for the day with his son and daughter, and parks himself in between Jeff and John, grinning like a fool.

“Corporate box,” Lee snorts, as the last strains of the national anthem fade away and he settles into his seat, elbows Jeff in the ribs. “Me and you used to blow outta school and hitch into town so’s to climb trees outside the stadium in Lawrence, watch the Jayhawks game through binoculars. _Corporate box_. Damned un-American. Johnny thinks so too, right, johnnycake? You remember the time I took all five of you boys to the Superbowl? No box seats _then_ , either.”

Jeff doesn’t comment, only watches his son, burying a grin in a handful of popcorn.

“Shoot, that was the year Virgil graduated. Right? Hell. Can’t be true that I ain’t seen you since then?”

John’s answering shrug is the sort of careful, precise movement that Jeff’s starting to grow accustomed to. He wonders if Lee notices it too, the way everything about John in public spaces becomes so carefully measured, hyper-aware of everything and everyone around him. He wonders if the four and a half years since they’ve seen each other is enough to make John into a stranger again.

Not that the rest of the afternoon progresses like an afternoon between strangers. Good old Uncle Lee, light on the horizon, the port in the storm. Lee who breaks off from yelling at the umpire to ramble through the highlight reel of his latest book tour. Or who’ll interrupt a spiel about the good old days on the dark side of the moon to heckle the shortstop. John doesn’t care about baseball, but his uncle provides plenty of entertainment seatside. Jeff and his son have it in common that they’ve both known Lee since they were in grade school, only where Jeff is the quintessential straight man to his best friend, John’s always bordered right up into hero-worship.

He wears it differently at twenty-four than he did at nine, but there’s the same rapt attention, the same genuine way he smiles and lights up and laughs. It’s not until Lee slings an arm around his John’s narrow shoulders and ruffles his red-gold hair that envy prickles at Jeff’s skin—not of the way John looks at Lee, but of the way Lee looks at John, absent of any of the context. The way Lee has his memory to account for the differences; maybe he just doesn’t remember how skinny John is, how he’s jumpy, a little unsettled at every touch. Doesn’t see the circles beneath his eyes, swallowed by the shadow of a ball cap. Maybe it’s all just not noticeable, for Lee. Maybe all John’s careful production is the sort of thing you only see if you’re looking for it.

It has to be _exhausting_.

Jeff clears his throat, the sort of sound that cuts through discussions he’s not part of, and exerts a father’s right to child labor, “John, go track down a few beers. There’s a place on the next level up with a brewery built in, use the corporate card and they’ll give you half off.”

Maybe this isn’t the right way to respond to the continued awareness of John’s exhaustion, mental, physical and otherwise, but he gets up and goes anyway, no complaint. Lee watches John, and Jeff watches Lee.

“Damn,” Lee chuckles, and turns back around in his seat, tips his own beat-up ball cap back over a thinning hairline. He squints out over the field behind aviator sunglasses at a game he hasn’t really been watching. “That boy’s not gonna be getting any shorter, is he? Swear he’s taller by the second.” Lee groans and stretches. “Already makes me feel old, now he makes me feel _short_ and old. Shoot. Virg’s grad. That was—what, that’s a couple years ago now? And Virgil’s up getting some Engineering degree in Denver or some such thing? Goddamn.”

“He’s probably lost some weight since you saw him last.” Virgil’s high school graduation and the barbecue that had followed. These are among pictures that rotate through the frame on Jeff’s desk. Pictures of Virgil, capped and gowned, Gordon pre Gold Medal, and John, college freshman, newly qualified for the lightweight crew, rowing for Harvard. The fact that Lee doesn’t seem to see the difference is _baffling_.

“Thought the freshman-fifteen was meant to be pounds on, not pounds off.”

“He’s not a freshman.” _He’s not anything at the moment._ “And he’s always been thin.” But there are those fifteen pounds again. Jeff deliberately doesn’t do the mental calculations that account for diminished muscle-mass, make up the thirty-odd pounds that’ve probably melted off his son in the time since Lee saw him last. It’s turning into a fixation.

Then—without quite meaning to say it and certainly without knowing why, as it’s completely non-sequitur to the conversation they’re actually having— “He had some problems with drugs. He’s taking the year off.”

Jeff’s not the one who with the stories. He can relate a decent anecdote, but Lee’s the one who weaves the relatively mundane into tales so fantastic that he merits a book deal. Lee’s the one with the autobiography. It takes a lot to really get Lee’s attention, as far as claims of the unbelievable go. He pulls his sunglasses off and shifts in his seat, and his stare is pure incredulity. “What, John? _Your_ John? The tall, gawky kid. Built computers over summer holidays, still gets real wound up ‘bout space camp. Doesn’t want my books getting made into movies because he doesn’t think they’d do ‘em justice. _That_ John?”

“Adderall. Gordon caught him at it.”

“ _Jesus_.”

And then nothing further. Lee’s attention returns to the ballgame, and when John gets back, he acts like nothing’s changed. Right back to the cheerful, boisterous chatter. It’s to Lee’s credit that he doesn’t treat John any differently. But then, Jeff likes to think _he_ doesn’t, either.


	4. mood and affect

Back to the penthouse. Rustled-up steaks and baked potatoes, something to settle comfortably on top of hotdogs and popcorn and a few beers. Now the sun’s gone down over Los Angeles, Jeff is washing the dishes, and Lee finds John out on the balcony, looking down over the city. Lee joins him at the railing, spends a few minutes appreciating the view, before he starts the conversation.

“So you don’t want ‘em makin’ a movie outta my book, Johnny?”

John shrugs, gestures vaguely with the bottle of beer he’s been nursing since dinner—that this skinny, mixed-up kid is old enough to _drink_ makes Lee feel like an absolute relic—and then, a little sheepish, “It’s just they wouldn’t get it right. _You’re_ the one who told me that, that it’s nothing like in the movies. But, I mean, that’s just—I’m just being selfish, really. Don’t let me stop you, I’m sure the rights are worth a great deal.”

Lee chuckles. “Nah. I ain’t really keen on the idea myself. Probably they’d get some bastard don’t look a thing like me up on screen, goddamn ridiculous. Probably too tall. Last damn thing I need, people tellin’ me I’m shorter than I oughta be.”

“I don’t think you’re short, Uncle Lee.” John’s half a foot taller than his uncle is, six feet-two inches of complete and utter diplomacy, and goes on to point out, “You’re closer to average height than I am. And astronauts are supposed to be small.”

Fathers aren’t supposed to have favourites. Uncles, though. Especially surrogate uncles. Lee’s got no problem ranking Jeff’s boys in the order he’s fond of them, and it’s impossible not to have a particular soft spot for John. Especially when, even with that half a foot difference, John genuinely doesn’t think his Uncle Lee is short.

It’s out of affection that Lee refrains from his habit of being blunt. He tests the ground before him, carefully probing towards a truth that John hasn’t shared. He’s casual when he starts to change the course of the conversation. “Heard you saw Gordon, recently. Tell me _he’s_ not getting any taller.”

Lee’s a storyteller through and through, right down to his very bones. And a book tour will teach a man a lot about body language, about bearing and presentation. Strolling around a stage with an earpiece and a microphone, talking expansively with his hands and gamboling forward and backward with the rhythm of a story has given Lee a finely tuned sense of the theatrics of posture. John stiffens from his spine to his fingertips, and in a moment he becomes a fixture, angular and rigid, like his father’s left a piece of modern art leaning against the railing. That beat of silence. And then a voice that doesn’t fit with the way he stands answers, “Oh, yeah. Gordon’s the same as ever.”

“Wasn’t the only thing I heard about Gordon. About _you_ and Gordon, specifically.”

The alarm bells that must be ringing in the younger man’s head are almost audible. Distantly a siren starts to wail, and draws along the length of every passing second, rising and falling in pitch until it fades into far-off absence, filled in by the white noise of the city below. The silence breaks like a thread snapping, tension leaving John in exactly the same way. He’s visibly wilting, and sounds numb, defeated as he says, “Oh.”

It’s an impossible amount of heartbreak to fit into a single syllable.

Lee’s always kept his heart firmly affixed to his sleeve and his empathy plays like pain across his features. “Aw, hey now. Kid, listen…”

Only now the kid’s gone, slipped sideways into the persona of the penitent addict, humble and ashamed, seeking contrition. “I guess I was supposed to tell you.” It’s all hollow recitation as he continues, “About the… the addiction thing. With me. Amphetamine addiction. I-am-an-addict.” This last is delivered with such a brittle cadence that the words practically shatter as they drop through the empty air, hit the ground. “I’m really sorry. No one is obligated to forgive me, but I know that I’ve hurt and disappointed—“

It’s harder to hear when you’ve heard it before, and especially from the other side. So Lee interrupts, “John, stop. Don’t do that, kiddo, don’t gimme the script. If you’ve been reading some damn program’s damn pamphlet, I ain’t interested in hearing it back from you. Wasn’t why I brought it up.”

Script is the right word, and John’s been thrown off his. He looks confused and goes on to explain, as though Lee doesn’t know— “I’m supposed to tell people.”

Lee turns what wants to be a growl into a grunt of acknowledgment. “Yeah, well, you weren’t the one who told me. And I ain’t seen you in four years, you ain’t done anything to hurt me. And I’m not disappointed.”

The soft groan that answers this is pained, protesting. “I think you probably should be.”

“You also don’t think I’m short, objectively your read on reality ain’t the greatest.”

Lee’s gone for a laugh, doesn’t get one, but knew better than to really expect that he would. John abandons the railing, drops into a lounge chair and glances through the glass door that leads back into the apartment. The kitchen’s empty, the dishes are done, and his father’s nowhere in sight, though John does crane his neck slightly, looking for him. When he doesn’t see Jeff, his gaze drops down to the bottle still in his hands, half full and damp with condensation. Lee doesn’t expect John to know what to say, is more than willing to be the one to break the silence, but John surprises him, even if he’s talking half to himself, “Dad wouldn’t have said, if he didn’t think you should know.”

Lee scoffs, and pulls up the chair next to his nephew. “Like hell. No, John, if we gotta talk about anything, it’s that your dad went and made a big damn mistake, and did well and properly wrong by you. _You_ tell people. When _you’re_ ready. _He_ doesn’t. That ain’t his right, and he was outta line, tellin’ me.” And Jeff’s going to hear about it, though Lee doesn’t feel the need to tell John about that. “I wouldn’t be bringin’ it up, only I just ain’t the kinda man can pretend I don’t know a thing like that.”

John’s clearly got a different take on the subject than Lee does, the way he shrugs, continues to stare blankly at his hands. “It’s okay. I mean. It explains a lot, I guess, probably—you would’ve wondered why I’m home. Why I’m…why I’m _here_ , instead of back in Kansas, back home with Grandma and…and Alan. Just, _properly_ home, not in LA. You did, didn’t you? And why I look…how I look. Thin. Kinda sick.” There’s a short little soundbite of laughter, false and painful. “Gordon said I can’t go anywhere near cornfields ‘til I put some weight back on, or I’ll get hung up to scare crows.”

Lee chuckles. “Little shit. Your brother used to have nightmares ‘bout scarecrows,” he comments, grinning at the sort of trivia that uncles file away, about their nephews. “If he’s givin’ you any grief, Johnny, you just turn up in his dorm room in a flannel shirt and overalls. Middle of the night. Teach ‘im a lesson.”

A soft little huff, not a laugh. “Maybe. I mean, no. I couldn’t—Gordon’s been—mm. I mean, Gordon was…”

“Found you out, eh?”

There aren’t any lights on, out on the balcony. The glow of the city is soft, hazy gold, enough to turn the two of them into silhouettes, not enough to show the draw of John’s features, nor to give any indication of the reason he rubs at his eyes. “Yeah. I owe him. And Virgil. They’ve been…good. Better than I deserve, really. I’m not…I mean, _I’m_ not supposed to be…be the fuck-up, in the family. For a long time I thought that was Gordon.”

Lee winces at this, at the way it’s said and _meant_. “Aw, Johnny. You’re not—“

John’s not listening, and he finishes the sentiment, undeterred, “—and I always treated him like he was. So. Yeah. Better than I deserve.”

There’s an internal narrative that Lee’s well-familiar with, and it’s hard not to remember his own voice at the back of his brain, age-old patterns that have wound their way into the fabric of his thoughts— _stupid washed-up failure, blew it all, wasted everything you could’ve been, should’ve done, meant to be better, weak, worthless, pathetic—_ His hand’s already drifted to the wallet in the back pocket of his jeans, pulled it out. There’s a hard-ridged, circular medallion that’s pressed an imprint in the leather. It’s funny, being the Uncle. He’s the repository of a lot of secrets—that Virgil was the one who scratched the paint on the driver’s side door of Scott’s first car, that Gordon’s afraid of scarecrows, that Alan can’t remember what his mother was like—kid’s stuff. Not trivial or unimportant, but also not the sort of secret that needed to be reciprocated. This isn’t kid’s stuff any longer, and it’s a hallmark of adulthood to trade these kinds of secrets at a one-to-one ratio.

It takes a bit of effort to pull it loose, but then it always does. It’s usually a yearly ritual, out with the old and in with the new, the anniversary of a started-stopped-started-and-finally-suceeded sobriety. The chip that Lee pulls free and holds out to his nephew has a dignified, serifed **IV** in the center, Shakespeare on the front and serenity on the back, a totem in bronze and enamel and bright, clear lacquer. “Your dad had no right, tellin’ me your business. But—I gotta give him credit, ‘cuz this ain’t his first rodeo—I know why he did.”

When he places it in John’s palm, it’s possible that the younger man doesn’t actually know what it is. He probably also hasn’t noticed that Lee’s isn’t a bottle of beer but a bottle of mineral water, probably doesn’t remember that the six pack at the ball game had been split three and three, rather than two, two and two. John turns the medallion over in his fingers, reads the front, the back, and then the lettering on the side. This is what clicks the truth into place, and when John looks up, it’s in plain disbelief. “…really?”

Lee chuckles, claps a hand on his nephew’s shoulder. “Yeah. Never had much stock in the prayer. The Shakespeare, though. That’s worth you and me havin’ a talk about. Addict to addict.”


	5. intervention

It all comes so much easier to Lee. Jeff doesn’t hear what’s said, but even just watching the tableau at a distance, silhouetted against the LA skyline—it’s plain that there’s an ease between the pair of them, that their conversation is close, intimate. Uncle Lee is a staunch old confidant—Jeff’s well-aware that his best friend is privy to secrets that he’s never heard from his boys. He’s plain-spoken and charismatic, a conversational safe-cracker. He’s opened the door to a talk with John that lasts over an hour and goes both ways; Jeff can see his son opening up, talking with his hands, engaging. Lee laughs loud and often, and is a master of those casual, genuine little moments of connection. Jeff’s taken advantage of this himself. He hardly begrudges his son the opportunity. Everyone deserves to be listened to by a guy like Lee.

So he’s reluctant to interrupt, but it’s starting to get late and he feels an obligation. He knocks his knuckles on the door before he slides it open and pokes his head out. The breeze is cool at this height above the city, and the chill in the air stirs an old fatherly instinct, makes him wish he’d told John to put on a jacket. Instead, he clears his throat, “You thinking about bed soon, John?”

Lee _has_ to notice it, the way John shifts from truth into falseness, the way the walls go shooting up. The movie instead of the book, a version of himself once removed from the person he really is. All false and formal and scripted as he stands up, says, “Yeah. I should. It’s late.”

“I don’t want to cut you off, but your doctor said—“

“It’s fine. I’m tired.”

It’s a little distressing just how often the “doctor’s orders” card has come into play. _Your doctor says you need to eat. Your doctor says you need to sleep. Your doctor says you should see a therapist. Your doctor says all the things your father seems to need to say by proxy._ Jeff clears his throat and respectfully bows out. “I’ll let you wrap up. Call it fifteen minutes, John?”

It’s more like five. Lee stays out on the balcony while Jeff busies himself at the bar, methodically pretends that an old-fashioned takes more than thirty seconds to make. He adopts an air of intense distraction as John slips inside and disappears down the hallway to the bedrooms without a further word.

So the evening’s quota of a single, polite “good night” got spent on Lee. That’s fine. There was probably a big, gruff bear hug to go along with it, the sort of rib-breaking squeeze that Lee bestows on anyone he’s known for at least five minutes, and he’s known John for his entire twenty-four years of life. Jeff’s uncomfortably aware of the fact that he still probably hasn’t done much more than touch his son’s elbow once or twice in the entire week he’s been here.

Everyone deserves to be listened to by a man like Lee, and while it’s certainly a good thing that John’s gotten to talk to him, it’s Jeff who’s been waiting for his turn.

So, out on the balcony, swirling whiskey in between ice, a wedge of orange, and a cherry. Lee has settled himself down in one of the lounge chairs, deeply in thought in the way he so rarely is. Jeff takes the chair next to his old friend with a grunt and a sigh, knows the wind will steal away the scent of alcohol, but puts his glass on the far table, out of Lee’s sight and reach, just out of respectful habit.

There’s an almost confessional air between the two of them, and Jeff waits to be acknowledged, waits for Lee to slide the screen open and give the nod, give him the go ahead to unburden himself, heft his sins off his chest and into hopeful absolution.

Eventually Lee sighs and sits up, shifts to sit forward in his chair. “Poor kid. Where the hell’d that come from, d’you think?”

“Christ, Lee, as if I know. I had no idea.”

“None?”

There’s no blame in Lee’s tone, but Jeff still feels his shoulders drop beneath the weight of presumed guilt. He tries not to sound defensive, as he says, “By every metric I had available, he was fine. Grades were up. Professors all like him, say he’s clever, charming, expected to go far. Then a week ago he turns up in town, books an eight-thirty slot, tells me he’s been on unprescribed amphetamines for a _year and a half_ and now he needs help. Virgil probably wouldn’t have known anything was wrong if he hadn’t been flirting with an overdose, might not have caught it _at all_ if Gordon hadn’t been there, known what he was looking at. How the hell that goes on and I don’t see it—“ Jeff shakes his head.

Lee has the benefit of an hour or so of heart to heart conversation behind him, and Jeff’s counting on this. He’s not asking for a betrayal of his son’s confidence, just some insight. His own muddled up mess of feelings about his son are hard enough to navigate, but not knowing what’s going on behind that pale, blank mask has been harder than anticipated. True to form, Lee clears his throat and offers a piece of extremely salient advice, “Addicts are wily. You know that. He doesn’t need you taking any blame for him. That ain’t your role now, and you know that. Same as it was when it was me. Support structure. You aren’t meant to _do_ things for him, you’re meant to _be_ here for him.”

“I don’t know how.”

“Bullshit. You were there when I—“

Jeff cuts his friend off, knows what he’s going to say, and doesn’t want to hear it. “It’s different. It was different with you, you and I are equals. Partners. I’ve always known how to back you up. This is my _son_ , Lee, and all I can think is that I wish he was a kid again, because I knew what I was doing then.”

Lee doesn’t answer immediately, and the silence stretches long enough that Jeff feels the need to fill it. He almost reaches for the drink he’s made, but stops himself. It seems in poor taste, somehow, given present company. Lee’s got a great deal more fortitude than that, really, but Jeff still leaves the glass alone, sighs to himself instead, breaks the silence, “He’s just in such godawful shape and I don’t know my way around him. I’m thinking of sending him back home properly, let my mom take over. She’d be a softer touch and god knows he needs it.”

Lee scoffs at this, openly derisive. “Well, that’s a fuckin’ awful idea. A boy needs his father, time like this. You wanna be a good father, you’re gonna be there for him.”

“Good fathers don’t have drug addicts for sons.”

Now Lee’s tone sharpens slightly, warning. “They also don’t go pawnin’ their boys off on their mothers, at the first sign of trouble.”

This hits uncomfortably close to home and Jeff stands, gets his drink and gets some distance. He tells himself that he has reasons and not excuses as he goes on, “I want to do right by him, I don’t want to make anything worse. _You_ could stand up to tough-love, but I look at John, and I think tough-love would break him. Then I think of what _could’ve_ happened, what he could’ve put this family through _again_ —Christ. I don’t _want_ to be mad at him, but hell if it’s not hard to believe he could be so damn stupid. I look at him and it scares the shit out of me; all the things I didn’t see. And it’s going to be a long time getting better. Weeks, months, and I’m going to have to just keep being reminded that I didn’t see him getting thin, couldn’t tell he was getting tired, didn’t know the son I wanted from the son I actually have. I’m going to have to watch him suffer through this and know it’s because I didn’t know any better.”

Lee’s unmoved. “Well, then you’re gonna harden the hell up and deal with it. You can’t make this about _you_ , Jefferson.”

“I’m not.” Lee’s also not a father. “Or maybe I am, but what of it? If I’m terrified, it’s because I’m terrified for him. I’m more than capable of admitting to that.”

Lee gets up with a grunt, and comes to join his friend by the railing. Jeff doesn’t know it, but Lee notes the similarities between father and son, the way they both stand halfway turned away from a conversation, guarded as it goes into territory that neither of them are prepared for. It’s not really that late. Not even midnight. But it feels like the sort of talk they used to have in the earliest hours of the morning, though the middle-aged version of 3AM is a brisk 11:30. Lee’s voice is gruff when he speaks, “Not wrong to be afraid _for_ him. It’s a damn scary thing and it’s got its hooks in your boy, claws and teeth and a hell of a lot of pain. You know what, though? I think you’re afraid _of_ him. And that’s so goddamn selfish and cowardly, Jeff, that I don’t even wanna _think_ it might be true.”

Despite the jokes that Jeff’s told at his best friend’s expense, there aren’t actually any lies in Lee’s book. Of the pair of them, for all their long friendship, Lee was never the liar. Even in the very darkest depths of his own addiction, there was never any deception. There’d never been anything but Lee Taylor, raw and honest about the way life felt at the end of a career spent among the stars. The next book he writes will be about that very struggle, and there’ll be a dedication to an anonymous _J._ , because Lee Taylor is the sort of man who writes a book purely with the dedication in mind.

It’s honesty Jeff needs from him, and the same tough love that Lee’s repaying now, in kind. He’s not clearing beer bottles and empty fifths of whiskey out of a filthy, run-down apartment, not driving his best friend to meetings and waiting outside in the car for their duration. Lee’s not putting up with ugliness or meanness or the very blackest demons of addiction, possessing his best friend. But he’s seen to the heart of a different sort of weakness, and just as Jeff had stood himself in Lee’s corner, Lee’s planted himself in Jeff’s.

And in the empty space he’s carved in the conversation, Lee goes on, heating up as he speaks, “What’re you so scared of, then? What’s so goddamn terrifying about the thought that your boy might just _need_ you? Is that _really_ so hard? You push him away now, you’re gonna kill him. Maybe not in body, but the light’d go outta that boy _so_ fast— _God_.” There’s a way Lee has of swearing that makes a person flinch, even having known him for decades. “You wanna know what _he’s_ afraid of? More of the same. More of what he was already doin’, cut off, out on the other side of the damn country. More of bein’ alone and untethered and unwanted.”

“He wasn’t ever—“

“No? Not that _you_ could tell. He went and did it to himself, soon as he made the decision to start poppin’ pills. Did half your work for you, set himself up for the fall. I know what you did with Gordon. And I know that was different and it worked, and there were good reasons it did. But it’s all John’s got to go on. You gotta tell him, straight to his face, that this is different, and you _know_ it’s different, and he’s not gonna get punished for this. You gotta forgive him, past, present and future. And then you gotta square yourself up, and have his back. He needs his dad. And you _can’t_ disappoint him, Jeff.”

What drives it home is the way it sounds exactly like what Gordon’s already told him—the way the words crawl uncomfortably down his spine, make him ache and feel his age. “I don’t want to. Am I allowed to be afraid of that?”

Lee chuckles and the mood starts to lighten, the righteous anger starts to leave him, along with one final piece of advice. “Don’t think you need to be, if you really set your mind to it. The next time you talk to your boy? Man the fuck up, Jeff, give him a hug, and tell him you love him.”


	6. self-loathing

Scott hadn’t been on purpose.

But then, Scott’s always been the one-in-a-million sort of lucky that apparently precedes even conception, and had him getting around two forms of birth control and arriving only five months after Lucy even realized she was pregnant.

So his eldest’s arrival into the family had been poorly timed—not unwanted, nor even unwelcome, but bold and out of nowhere and impetuous, just the way Scott would turn out in adulthood. Jeff had been there to see him born, had been there for the first few weeks of Scott’s life, but then circumstance had whisked him away, spaceward, for a mission that would last nearly a year. His mother had tagged in, and though there’ve been plenty of years in which to express his gratitude for the way she’s always been there, nothing ever seems quite adequate to thank her for something so fundamental. By the time he’d gotten back—gotten to see his son in the flesh instead of in a grainy video chat bounced off a handful of satellites to the dark side of the moon—Scott was already a chubby, sturdy little creature, gurgling and giggling and toddling and teething, and nothing like the tiny bundle he’d been at the hospital, or in those first few weeks spent mostly sleeping, mostly curled up on Lucy’s chest.

_John_ , though. John had been purposeful, John had been deliberate, John had been _planned_. The rigour of scheduling and strategy and perfect timing and a certain strict absence of _fun_ where the act of actually making a baby were concerned—all of this seems like it might have bled over into the person _he’d_ grown up to be. John had arrived in the world three years after his brother, only a day off from his projected due date, and Jeff had been _ready_.

Or, he’d thought so, anyway, in that naive way that new fathers have.

So Jeff never lingered in the doorway of Scott’s bedroom. Hadn’t been around to. Hadn’t been around to learn the ropes the way his wife had, about newborn babies and their terrifying fragility. Coming home to Scott, he’d found him bright and blue-eyed and smiling, easy to love, and crucially, at the close of the window of infancy.

Infants have an unfortunate—if incredibly rare—habit of dying, inexplicably, in their cribs in the middle of the night. And awareness of the facts and statistics had been nothing like the actual reality of standing in a doorway for an hour at a time, straining to hear the sounds of a baby breathing, and wondering where the hell a three-month-old gets the impudence to roll over onto his belly and into statistically dangerous territory, when it’s not supposed to happen for another _month_.

It had been in the doorway of John’s nursery that Jeff had needed to wrangle with a quintessential personal truth—what he fears isn’t what he can’t understand, but what he can’t control. Lucy had gotten her year with Scott in infancy, learned to trust that the odds of anything happening to her baby were vanishingly small and to leave him sleeping in peace—for Jeff the lesson had come slower, harder, and with the frequently committed sin of _waking_ the baby.

It’s just—

He’s lingering in the doorway of John’s bedroom again, and the fear is shockingly familiar. Jeff’s read all the literature. He’s read the statistics and the causes of complications. He’s been reassured by more than one doctor that John’s going to be all right. But the same urge that’s caught him before catches him again, to creep into the room and just— _check_.

Because it’s late. And it’s dark. And Lee Taylor’s long since left, but his words are going to cling to the inside of Jeff’s skull the way things aren’t supposed to. They’ll be in the pleasant company of words like “withdrawal” and “detox”, “oversleeping” and “cardiac distress”. The whole reason he’s gotten caught in the doorway again is the offhanded thought that lately his son sleeps like the _dead_.

And whether or not, from a distance, his father would be able to tell the difference.

It’s a paranoid, unreasonable fear. John’s fine. He keeps telling himself that John’s fine, even if strictly speaking _fine_ is generous. Even if he’s pushing himself too hard, trying to _seem_ fine. John’s been fine for twenty-four years, and just because he’s no longer out of sight and out of mind is no reason for Jeff to feel like a nervous new father again.

And yet—

John’s curled on his side, buried in extra blankets. He’s latched onto his pillow, apparently (hopefully) for dear life, pressed his face deep against it. The light from the hallway brightens only a slice of the room, not enough to really see if John’s breathing. If he would just _move_ , it would be an end to it, would reassure his father as the minutes stretch past.

_Don’t make this about you._

Lee’s warning isn’t more than an hour old, and yet Jeff still slips into the room, selfish. He tells himself he’s walking softly, but the truth is it wouldn’t matter, John sleeps too soundly to be disturbed by the fall of footsteps. He tells himself he’s just being prudent, bending over the nest of blankets, even though it’s abruptly plain that John’s just asleep and he needn’t have worried. Jeff tells himself he was being an old fool to worry at all, even as he carefully lowers himself to sit on the edge of the bed. The shift of the mattress has his son stir slightly and then wince at the brightness of the light from the hall. John lifts his head from the pillow and his bleary green eyes take a long time to recognize his father.

“…Dad?”

Too late for Jeff to pretend, even to himself, that he wasn’t actually hoping to wake his son, but too soon for him to have thought of anything to say. The way John’s voice is soft and tired and strained has Jeff’s stomach twist with guilt, like this is unkind and self-serving and a mistake, so he says the only thing he can think to say, the thing he’s been _instructed_ to say.

“…you know I love you, right?”

Maybe he says it too quietly to be heard, because the only reaction is dead air, blank confusion. John’s still groggy and rubbing at his eyes as he turns over in his twisted up nest of sheets and blankets, pushes himself up. “Dad,” he repeats, as though expecting confirmation, as though it could be anyone else.

Jeff sighs, heavy and tired in his own way. “Just me, John.”

“S’wrong?”

Maybe this is the trick, catching John when he’s still half-asleep and hasn’t had time to build his walls, because it’s the first time he’s made any overtures in his father’s direction, beyond what’s accounted for by furtive politesse. This single syllable seems somehow more genuine than anything that’s passed between them in the entire week.

There’s plenty wrong, and it’s as good a place as any to start to start with the ground that’s already been covered for him. “Your Uncle Lee tore a solid chunk out of me, on your behalf. I suppose I’ve had a good solid hour to mull it over, and you know I’m not a patient man.”

The weak chuckle he gets in answer is strangely encouraging, and Jeff continues, “…so I’m sorry, for telling him about what you’re going through. It wasn’t my place, and it was heavy-handed and blunt, selfish of me. I only thought he’d know how to help you better than I do.”

John’s more and more guarded by the second, if still heavy-eyed with sleep and yawning. “Mm. Mmhm. Yeah, well. It was…it was good to talk to him. Makes me feel less like—like I’m a…”

“You’re not a failure, John, and I never want to hear you say so,” Jeff tells him, flirting with sternness, but managing only just to restrain himself, modulate his tone into gentle firmness. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have told him, that’s a fact. You don’t need to try and bend the way you feel around what you think I want to hear.”

John shrugs and lets another minute pass. Brick by brick, up go those walls, silence mortaring up the chinks. And then, improbably, John’s voice is raw and honest as he says, “I don’t…I don’t _want_ to tell anyone. I wish it wasn’t true, but since it is, I’d rather nobody ever had to know. Virg wouldn’t tell. I mean…he might, if it was Scott who asked him, but that’s just… I mean, I just never need to give Scott a reason to ask him. And he wouldn’t say if I _told_ him not to. And I know Gordon won’t. So I wouldn’t have told Uncle Lee, but then, I….then we talked. And then it was okay, that he knew. I was glad you told him, because I never would have, and…and he was right, about a lot of things. And it helped. And he didn’t hate me, so that was—“

“No one _hates_ you,” Jeff interrupts, distantly remembering a question that Gordon had asked. Turns out it hadn’t actually been a question about Gordon, after all.

Light catches in John’s eyes for the first time, the gleam of gold from the hallway sparking a flicker of defiance, and for a moment he’s the same as he was fresh out of high-school, wickedly smart and keen and clever, and with that fine point awareness of the technicalities of any given statement. And he corrects his father, looks Jeff straight in the eye and says, “There's one person who really, _really_ hates me.”


	7. love

_But you’re such a good kid._

_And you work so hard and you’ve done so well and I’ve never been anything but amazed by the way you accomplish everything you set your mind to, never known anyone as whole-hearted and determined. I flatter myself that it’s my example, but the truth is that you’ve just got so much more willpower than I even imagined, that you’d go this far to try and be what you think I want._

All of this is true, but none of it is anything Jeff can bring himself to say. Something about the truth of who John is—who he _really_ is—seems like it would only hurt him now, would only sound like lies and platitudes; compared to what _he_ must think is true, that he could hate himself. Jeff doesn’t want to be a father whose son hates himself.

It’s still what he is, though.

“I’m sorry,” seems like the only thing you can say, when your son hates himself, so it’s what Jeff says, softly and sincerely. It’s the sort of thing you have to say and _mean_ , the sort of thing you have to say with a fullness of understanding, of just what you’re sorry _for_. “I’m sorry, John, that you’d feel that way.”

John shrugs those bony shoulders, drops his sharp-eyed gaze and pulls his knees up beneath the blankets, rests his arms around them. Defensive, maybe, though there’s no need for it. “I can’t help it. I hate that I’m someone who’d do something like this.”

“I know.” And it’s possible that those fatherly instincts aren’t buried as deeply as he thinks they are, because his hand drifts, gentle, to catch his son’s jaw and get him to look up, before Jeff drops his hand to his son’s shoulder, squeezes. “But _I_ don’t, if that’s what you’re afraid of. All right, John? I don’t hate you and I’m not angry. You made a mistake, but you’re forgiven. I know you lied to me for a long time, maybe it’ll be hard to break the habit, but try. It would mean a lot to me, if you tried. You don’t always need to say the right thing, you can stop trying to stay one step ahead of me. You can be hurt and tired and angry and I’ll try to understand. And if there’s ever anything I can do to help you, I hope you’d tell me.”

It must still feel new, for John, being talked to like this. Jeff’s tried to imagine the sort of conversations he must have had over spring break, caught between Gordon and Virgil. As far as emotional stamina goes, John’s always been better at the marathon than he is at the sprint. He’s gone so still, frozen from the point of contact, that the shudder through him startles them both. “—okay.”

Jeff almost wonders if he’s pushing too hard, being selfish again, with this intrusion. Wonders if this is going to come up in therapy. John builds walls. But this one is fresh and the mortar’s still wet, and it doesn’t take much of a shove to topple it over, bury his son in cinderblocks and damp cement.

But maybe Harvard did him _some_ good, taught him a little bit about reciprocity, because with a sort of shaky intake of breath, John makes the effort. “I’ll try. I’m just…I’m not…I was alone for a long time and sometimes I think I liked it better when I knew nobody was thinking about me. This—everything, with Gordon and Virgil and Uncle Lee—and you—it’s hard, with everybody watching. I’m trying really hard to…to be okay. To let everyone know I’m okay.”

This is probably the most John’s said at a single stretch since first confessing to the problem. His father can’t help the warm burst of gratitude in his chest, the fulfillment that comes with actually making some progress. Probably he should think about wrapping this up, letting John get back to sleep, but it’s hard not to want to step past that tumbled down wall, find out what’s behind it. “Gordon says you waste a lot of your energy, trying to seem like you're okay. I suppose before now I’ve been taking your answers for granted, when I ask you how you are.”

John has the decency to look guilty, or at least a little ashamed, that he’s been caught in a lie. Still, he’s cautious, cagey as he hedges, “Are you asking?”

“You had a GPA of 3.9, John, it’s insultingly transparent when you attempt to play dumb.”

“I picked it up from Gordon. Do you know he’s lowballing all his classes?”

This is, actually, something Jeff’s long suspected and is grudgingly allowing to slide, if the tradeoff is a version of Gordon who’s distracted from general hellraising by the belief that he’s actively getting away with something. “You’re changing the subject.”

“Technically, I think you’ll find I’m avoiding the question.”

“John.” It’s not a reprimand or a warning, but an appeal. They’re closer to something like a resolution now than they’ve been before, and it still nettles at Jeff’s conscience, that John feels the need to do this.

“…sorry.” It’s still dark in the room, though by now they’ve both adjusted to the dimness. Darkness isn’t kind to John, shadows find all the sharp parts of him, narrow face and bony knuckles, one hand wrapped around the wrist of his other. Maybe he’s conscious of this, because he doesn’t look up as he says. “I’m okay. I mean, I’m—it’s hard. Some days it’s really, _really_ hard. Sometimes I feel so tired I think I'm dying, but I know that’s—that’s just, it’s the way this is. I've been through that before, a couple times. Sometimes I don’t think it’s worth it, and I’d rather—rather be back in Boston, back to having everything together. I _did_ , you know, mostly. Maybe I would’ve been okay for a little longer, I—“ he trails off, glances up, guilty again. “Sorry. That’s…I mean, it’s just true.”

This is possibly the sort of thing John’s held back for a good reason, because of the electric jolt of cold fear it sends through his father. He’s not sure if now is the time and place to tell his son just how close he’d been to actually killing himself. His doctor’s been instructed to go gently, but Jeff’s gotten it with both barrels, all her righteous reprehension. He keeps his tone neutral as he says, “Everyone’s thankful you’re getting help.”

There’s a humourless huff of something like laughter. “I hope you’re excluding me from _everyone_. Sometimes I wish neither of them had come out. Virg and Gordon. Sometimes I really, _really_ hate Gordon for this.” And then, hastily, “He knows that, though. I mean, I—he calls me, and once or twice he’s caught me at a bad time, and—I mean, I don’t _mean_ it. I don’t hate Gordon, it's just sometimes I wanna blame somebody else for a while. I’ve been—god, I’ve been awful, to Gordon. When did Gordon get so patient?”

Jeff chuckles. “Probably right around the time you started needing him to be.”

"Funny how that worked out." John's dropped his chin to rest on his knees, his voice is starting to soften again and his eyes are heavy. His father's got a new phrase to hear in the space of his silences--- _so tired I think I'm dying_.

That's a solid reason to wrap this up, though there's still one thing that needs saying, that thing he's already tried to say once before. "You know I love you, right?"

There's a pause, and then a little stiffly, "I know that." Jeff knows better than to take it personally, what with the nature of marathon versus the sprint.

Jeff ruffles a hand through John's hair again, doesn't imagine it when his son leans into the gesture, maybe seeking a bit of proof to go with this newly stated truth. "Well, good. I hope maybe that helps, when you're tired and when this is hard. Don't forget it."

"I won't." There's another one of those long pauses, probably of the sort that his son uses to strip out all the apologies and caveats and explanations that seem to go along with any of John's own personal truths. So it's quiet and simple when he says, "Love you, too."

The other half of the order Jeff's been given follows naturally, it'd be almost impossible not to reach out and pull his son into a brief, tight embrace. "You're a good kid, John," his father tells him, and means it. The way he feels some of the tension slacken out of his son, maybe that's something John's needed to hear.

If that's the case, maybe John's answer back is just reciprocity. Maybe it's not one of those deep, permament truths, and just something they both wish was the case.

Still, it counts for something and maybe it's just nice to hear when his son says, "You're a good father, Dad."

And things between them begin to get easier.


End file.
